


White Rabbit

by Darraika, Meredith (Darraika)



Series: Invictus [2]
Category: EVE Online
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darraika/pseuds/Darraika, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darraika/pseuds/Meredith
Summary: Picking up thirty-five years after the events of Invictus, which doesn't need to be read to make sense. Meredith returns after disappearing without a trace a little over thirty years ago in Drifter/Sleeper space, but did she really escape them? Or was she allowed out... and if the latter why?
Series: Invictus [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327973
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very, very long time after Invictus. If anything, Invictus takes place a good thirty years before what is considered "modern day" for EVE Online since we're now in YC 122. This takes place a few years before that and actually forms the basis, like Invictus, of my character's background.

**Deklein/N-U2LX/C7Y-7Z  
Somewhere past the last planet’s orbit  
YC118.06.19**

The tiny frigate remained in cloak.The pirates this far out would easily blow up the ship, often with a single shot. But the ship was the quickest and quietest to slip around a system. The signature the pilot was looking for was hardly unusual. Wormholes appeared and disappeared all the time, some of them even useful. If large enough, and to the right area, they could take products straight from null-sec to trading hubs in high-sec, and back again, until they collapsed.

Other times they only went to dead systems.

And then still others they were simply dangerous and needed to be collapsed before they did so naturally.

And he never knew what kind of wormhole it would be until he landed on one.

“Extremely dangerous, unknown… damn…” muttered Jarvis Cipher under his breath. “And brand new.”

Newly developed meant at least twenty four hours before it decayed and vanished on its own. It was at least a very small one. Nothing bigger than a ship similar to his could slip through but enough of them could also wreak havoc if left for too long and if it led to an area occupied by capsuleers that thrived on that sort of thing.

Jarvis took a breath, and grit his teeth as his ship shook as it entered the event horizon, and came out the other side.

Saving where the exit was, he quickly warped off to the nearest gravity well, dropping his probes and cloaking back up as he did. A few moments later, they deployed and the data came back in.

It was a dead end system. No other signatures leading out, and only a few curious ones within the system… but nothing that suggested capsuleer activity.

 _What the hell?_ He crinkled his brow. _What made it extremely dangerous_ …

His eyes widened as d-scan picked up a single ship.

A prospect.

An old one.

One with a name and hull number he recognized.

The ship’s name was the _Skead_ , and the hull registry certainly matched the name. But it couldn’t be. The ship, and its pilot—Meredith en Thielles—had disappeared over thirty years ago. He changed the probes focus to the ship, and then followed the signature until he was 2500m off the ship’s bow. He blew out a breath. Space dust and rust adorned it. The thirty years of aimless drifting showed on the hull—pockmarked and with dark holes in spots. There was no mistake. The ship was dead.

Jarvis felt sick to his stomach.

The pilot had been an old friend, and a colleague. A brilliant astro-geologist—with a fiery temper to match. Seeing the ship dashed the hope that perhaps he could have seen her, alive, one day. A thin hope after thirty years, he knew, but still.

But he owed her enough to at least confirm, with his own eyes, that she was dead.

He owed her son that much as well.

He pulled the frigate up to the side of it, and then, finally he brought the view port of the cockpit of his frigate to the same of hers, and lit a spot light to illuminate the interior.

It was dark in there.

And empty.

He blinked.

He had fully expected to find her at her station… a pilot to the end even as the life support failed around her. That’s how he always imagined her going out. But, perhaps, she had gone into the living quarters and died there. He blew out another breath.

He was going to have to board it.

* * * *

An hour later, and sealed into a spacesuit, Jarvis found himself turning the manual access to enter her ship. The airlock opened, and he stepped inside, floating to the next door. After a short scan, he confirmed that since the hull had been vented that there was no point in closing the outer doors. He had no idea why he was so spooked, but he found the idea of having a quick exit reassuring.

The inner doors opened.

He shone his flashlight down into the ship. Nothing floated freely around. Then again, Meredith had always been known to keep her things stowed for transit and was always neat and tidy.

But it wasn’t her things he dreaded seeing float.

It was her _body_.

He stepped into the ship and pushed off to encourage himself to enter the ship, shining the light as he sank into the ship. He was now in the living quarters. The prospect was as small, perhaps smaller, than his ship due to the holds and the space taken up by the cloaking device and scanning equipment. There was really only the tiny living space for one pilot, comfortably, two not so comfortably, and then the cockpit. The only other space she could have been was in the head, and that door was open.

He peered into the ore holds, and even poked his head into the engineering corners.

Nothing.

No bones, no body.

“What in the name of hell?” he muttered, as he wandered through the space.

This was a puzzle and he wasn’t even sure what to make of it. It was as if she had left the ship (for where? Why?) and then the ship had been left to drift. All of her personal items were still on board, including her glasses—which told him she may not have left willingly.

Someone had taken her, and judging by the dust and corrosion, it hadn’t been that long after she had gone missing.

Jarvis blew out a breath, grabbing the glasses and a few other things from the ship. A moment later, he closed his eyes and made a decision.

Hours later, and many trips back and forth from the prospect, he had stripped everything of note from it. Her data from her computer had been uploaded to the data cores on his ship—no matter no insignificant. Everything that had been hers now was packed away in the cargo hold of his ship. With a few last scans to make sure she hadn’t hidden anything else away, he pushed himself back up and out to his own ship.

He took something else out of his cargo hold, and after a thought he took those with him as he dropped back down into the prospect again. Placing the charges around the power core of her ship, as well as where else it counted, he then retreated back to his ship and then moved away to a safe distance of approximately a hundred kilometers away and made sure he had recloaked.

Jarvis took a breath.

“Good-bye, Meredith,” he whispered.

The prospect exploded, and then a short time late the secondary charges exploded, taking the scrap with it. Only dust remained.

Jarvis retreated back to the wormhole, and returned to the system he had left.

The wormhole remained, but he would need far more than what he had to collapse it.

* * * *

If the others noticed his darkened mood, they were respectful enough to leave him be. Jarvis wasn’t in the mood for company and he knew it showed. The bar wasn’t quiet, but no one sat next to him.

Finally, someone broke his reverie by sitting next to him.

V’lojiek Anstian had actually been Meredith’s first officer on the _Invictus_ , back when Meredith had commanded it. Back when they all worked for the Society of Conscious Thought. Jarvis had been their handler, and contact, handing them missions. V’lo, even after they had left, had continued to stick around all through the mess than had been their former employer back in Omist, and now in Deklein.

Other than Meredith’s son, if anyone was owed an explanation it was him first.

“Okay, out with it, Jarvis,” said V’lojiek. “You’ve been quiet since coming back from that wormhole.”

Jarvis didn’t answer, at least not verbally, but took the glasses out from his shirt pocket and laid them on the bar. He saw V’lojiek glance down, and his eyes widen. His face paled as he realized what sat on the bar. “Oh,” murmured V’lojiek as he traced the shape of them. “Oh… damn…”

“She wasn’t on it,” said Jarvis.

“Then what?”

“The ship was abandoned. Untouched. I took everything off it, and uploaded what was in her computer. But she wasn’t on it.”

“So it drifted… if we look at the trajectory and the velocity, we can trace back where she was…”

“I got that data too.”

“Then we can…”

“It leads straight into Drifter territory.”

If it were possible for the man to pale further, V’lojiek did. “Dear God.”

“The data suggests it.”

“Did you listen to her logs yet?”

Jarvis shook his head. “I haven’t been able to bring myself to.”

“We owe her that much,” said V’lojiek, and he looked out the windows of the station as if he could see the wormhole. “The wormhole is still there.”

“V’lo, it’s decayed to the point that to go through it would trap you as surely as it did her,” said Jarvis. “And then it has drifted there. Thirty years of drift, I might add. At least.”

The other man sighed heavily and motioned to the bartender. “The strongest you have,” he said. “And keep it coming. Have you told anyone else yet?”

Jarvis shook his head. “Haven’t found the others to tell them.”

“Well, that being said… I’m drinking until I don’t remember my name, let alone hers,” said V’lojiek.

Jarvis snorted as he poured himself a glass. “I think I’m with you on that.”

* * * *

**Deklein/N-U2LX/DKUK-G VI – Moon 2**   
**Minmatar Service Outpost**   
**YC118.12.21**

On a planet they once called the cradle of humanity, so far back no one really remembered it anymore, this day had been known as Winter Solstice. Now, though it was simply Youil, and celebrated something different as a single planet’s axial tilt didn’t translate quite so well in space itself.

Not that anyone remembered why it had started. Why on this day. Why the traditions still stuck as stubbornly as humanity itself did to survival.

Lippstadt Creed had done reasonably well, even if it hadn’t been formally accepted into the parent alliance it rented the system from. The other corporation, Sudden Impact, was an equally tight knit unit. DKUK-G was even further away, but the resources were rich with ice readily available not two jumps away.

Jarvis Cipher and Vlojiek had pored over the logs in the six months since he had found the _Skead_.

Now they had added a third—Jay Nye had rejoined the fold and once he had learned they had found a trace of Meredith he had thrown himself into reading and listening to the logs.

It was good to hear her voice again, even if recorded. But the recordings were new to them and the fresh knowledge was like a breath of fresh air.

It was like she stood in the room again.

Jarvis Cipher had been a young man then. Barely into his twenties. Now, thirty three years later, he was into his fifties. Jay was into his sixties. V’lo was the oldest, older than Meredith would have been. But life spans stretched longer with capsuleer technology, and with medicine. V’lo was only just starting to consider retirement but had a good few years yet left to him.

“No hint of what happened,” mused Jay after one night, as they sat in the station bar. “Just day to day things. Discoveries. Scans. If we ever find a wormhole, we’ll at least have enough data to know it was the right one.”

“We haven’t gone through them all yet,” said Jarvis, after a long swallow. “We are just getting to a hint of where she was getting desperate.”

Up until the most recent entries, the logs had been optimistic. Meredith had taken plenty of stores with her, just in case the wormhole had closed behind her, so she would have had enough supplies to survive on for years until she found a wormhole to take her home. But they had reached a point in her logs where those supplies were running low, and Meredith still had not been able to find a way home.

Her logs were now about finding home, and slowly turning to knowing she wouldn’t and making sure the data… if found, and she sounded like she had her doubts… was useful to whoever found it.

This last hurt hearing.

It was a Meredith en Thielles who knew she was about to die.

Alone and lost.

Jarvis held up his glass. “Well, gentleman, we’re almost at the end.”

V’lojiek and Jay held up their glasses as they clinked them together before downing their drinks.

“Let’s go hear what the lady has to say,” said Jay as he stood up.

* * * *

A day later the three sat at the bar, a bottle shared amongst the three of them.

Not an hour ago, they had listened to the final log of Meredith en Thielles. There were no others after it.

Her supplies had run out. A hit from a stray comet trail had damaged her ship and it had been leaking air and heat. She had mere minutes left before the life support quit, and the tiny ship shut down. All final hope of being found—alive—had vanished.

 _Tell my son I love him… and I’m sorry_ , had been her final words.

And the _Skead_ had powered down.

It wasn’t hard to imagine her drifting in space, her body floating freely in the cockpit… but Jarvis knew she hadn’t been in there. There hadn’t even been bones. Only her glasses. Jarvis tapped his fingers along the table. This was a fact argued among them. Had she been rescued? Recovered?

They why did they abandon the ship and everything close to her?

They knew why.

The path the ship had drifted from was straight out of Sleeper and Drifter space. Rumours and even some substantiated reports told frightening tales of the Drifters taking bodies of capsuleers after defeating them. The same had likely happened to Meredith. Why? Who knew with the Drifters.

An alarm blared, and the three looked up.

One of the other directors, a man everyone knew as Bulldog, ran by and Jarvis stood up—somewhat shakily—and asked, “What’s happening?”

“A damn wormhole opened up and one of the miners is being attacked by a Drifter ship,” answered Bulldog.

Jarvis blinked, and looked at the other two. “That doesn’t make sense. They don’t usually attack miners.”

“They’ll attack anyone out here,” said Jay, waving it off.

Moments later, the panic subsided, and Bulldog threw his helmet on the table with disgust.

“What now?” asked Jarvis.

“They stood down before we could even undock. Left moments later,” said Bulldog. “Poked a miner, didn’t even kill him, and then left back through the same wormhole. We’re rolling it now.”

“Hey, Jarvis, there’s a prospect out there,” said another corp member. “They’re asking for you.”

Jarvis blinked. “What?”

“Yeah, it came out of the same wormhole, at speed, I might add. Prop mods on. Came out like the hounds of hell were after it.”

Jarvis accepted the radio. “All right, pilot, state your name and your purpose out here. This alliance operates on a ‘Not blue, shoot it’ policy, and you’re not blue.”

“When I saw your name in local, I was as surprised as any,” said the pilot, and V’lojiek caught him, although his eyes were just as wide.

“Holy shit,” said Jay. “It’s Meredith.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And what does Meredith remember?

**Deklein/N-U2LX/DKUK-G VI – Moon 2**  
Minmatar Service Outpost  
YC118.12.22

Jarvis leaned against the wall outside the room. On the other side of the glass sat the white haired woman that looked like his old friend, but so much had changed about her.

But yet so much had remained the same.

Her hair was longer than he remember, and was halfway down her back. It was wild, unkempt. A bit greasy and lank. Jay Nye paced in the same room as he did, staring through the one way glass every so often. Only V’lojiek was calm—but he leaned on the frame of the window.

Bulldog had chained her to the steel table. Handcuffs and ankle bindings and even a neck restraint. The handcuffs were made of hardened tritanium, and powered. The neck restraint served as both a stun device, and—if necessary—a small explosive charge ringed it.

“She doesn’t need that much security,” said Jay, as he stopped pacing and pointed at her. “Look at her, Mac, she’s no threat to us. We all know her. V’lo and I even served with her. We can vouch for her. Hell, even Jarvis can!”

“We don’t even know if that woman is your Meredith,” said Bulldog. “You’ve heard as much as we all have about what the Drifters have done. She might look, or even sound, like your Meredith. She might even know things yours would have known but she could as easily be a plant.”

“The Drifters have never cared for that sort of thing,” said V’lojiek. “All they’ve cared is if we’ve strayed too close to their territory. They’ve never struck back or had any use in infiltrating. And, if they are now—she’s a little bit obvious in both timing and… well… look at her.”

Jarvis blew out a breath.

If it was Meredith—really, and truly _their_ Meredith en Thielles—she had escaped from the Drifters. It could be seen. Everything from the chest down was cybernetic like the Drifters. Her complexion, which had never been anything else but paper like pale in the first place, was even more so with a faint grey cast. Her eyes, while not black like the Jovians or Drifters, had been altered to nearly look similar. All trace of her green eyes had faded to nearly colourless, as had the sclera. Her dark hair with the hint of ginger was gone. Instead, her hair was white. Not silver, not grey—white.

If that hadn’t been shocking enough, the cybernetic alterations now went up her neck and into her face, and now both arms were cybernetic. The capsuleer connections were inset into a spine and neck replaced by cybernetics.

She looked half Drifter and half herself. Like the Drifters had done their best to make her look as close as they could to her old self as they could muster, but still fell a bit short.

Jarvis could understand why Brandubh and Bulldog were reticant to accept her.

He wasn’t too sure if he could himself.

“Let me talk to her,” he finally said.

“Not sure if that’s a good idea,” said Bulldog.

“I agree,” said Mac. “You’re a little close to this.”

Jarvis sighed heavily. “Either trust me as a Director and to act as one, or don’t, but either way I’m the best one to figure out if she’s a plant or the real thing.”

Mac nodded, and Jarvis opened the door and walked in. Meredith looked up at him and then back into her own reflection in the one way glass. “Now that I see myself, I can see why the suspicion.”

“You haven’t even seen your own reflection until now?” he asked as he sat down across from her.

She shook her head. “How long has it been?”

“Years, Mere,” he answered, his voice low. “Decades, actually.”

“How many?” she asked again, her voice shaking.

“It’s YC120.”

Her mouth opened as if she was going to speak, and then she closed it again. Finally she closed her eyes and her head sank to her hands. “My son?” she asked finally.

“Out on his own, I imagine,” he answered and he smiled. “I’ve kept track. He’s gotten into his own trouble, and back out again. He’s happy. And he’s safe.”

“Is he here?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, he’s out in high sec.”

“Oh,” she leaned back finally, but her eyes were suspiciously shiny. “And the others?”

“V’lo and Jay are out here,” answered Jarvis. “Gina is… well… she’s got the _Invictus_ now, I understand. Or a ship like it. I seriously doubt they have her flying that old ship. No idea about the others. People have moved on. Meredith, you’ve been missing for thirty-three years. Where have you been all this time?”

She shook her head. “It’s fuzzy.”

“Try to remember,” he pressed.

“I can’t remember much,” she admitted. “It’s… it’s like I woke up from a really, really long dream. I can’t remember why or what happened. But I woke up. I was in a pod, and it opened. I knew—somehow—that I was a capsuleer and cybernetic. I can’t remember how or why, or when it happened.”

“Do you remember how you came to be there?” he asked.

She shook her head, and then stopped. “I remember passing out. The ship… there was a comet. Scans didn’t pick it up. I flew through the tail and the debris left my sheilds down and holes in my hull. I remember thanking my lucky stars that most of the damage was concentrated in the holds and not in the cabin. But, there was enough damage to start leaking atmosphere. Just bits of it… just enough to start to seriously drain resources,” she answered.

“And then?”

“I passed out after the last of the air and power vented,” she answered, as she looked at her hands and then looked back up at him again. “And then… I remember waking up. I wasn’t completely awake, but I have bits and pieces. There were people staring down at me. Bright lights. Being on a bed and tied down. Someone told me to sleep, and I did. I remember waking up again and… this is the confusing part. I knew I was dreaming but it was real. I can’t remember it clearly but I remember a shining city… and so many others. And then it was like it started to fade. I think… I think I fought in a war but it depended on me remembering I was me, and fighting against this darkness.”

Jarvis sucked in a breath. “Did you win?”

“I don’t know,” she answered as she looked at him. “I woke up… and I remember stumbling to that prospect and knowing I had to run. I don’t know why or how. But I had to run.”

“And the Drifters didn’t stop you?” he asked.

She looked up at him, surprised. “Drifters? What do they have to do with anything?”


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving forward.

**Deklein/N-U2LX/DKUK-G VI – Moon 2  
Minmatar Service Outpost  
YC118.12.23**

Jarvis, out of the three Directors of Lippstadt Creed, was the only one pacing. The other two sat at the table. “If we do this, she still has to be declared alive again rather than the dead everyone assumed her to be,” pointed out Brandubh, who everyone called Mac anyway. “I mean, I’m all for it. We accepted riskier than a woman who is very likely a Drifter… I mean, we’re in null-sec. People here came out here to make their own lives regardless of where they are originally from. What’s one more faction to add to the list of ex-pats?”

“A Drifter?” asked Bulldog, and Jarvis cleared his throat. “Excuse me, a half Intaki, half Deteis woman who was on the fence on what faction she belonged to in the first place but suddenly was made a Drifter and is now going to join us. I mean, does anyone realize how bad that sounds? Seriously?”

“You found her,” pointed out Mac.

“I know that, but jeez.”

“Why not help her now and we can put her on probation before extending membership?” asked Jarvis. “There’s more than enough for her to do on the station.”

“You’re suggesting house arrest?” asked Mac.

“It’s better than tossing her to CONCORD the way she is now,” said Jarvis, and he shuddered.

If they did that, they knew what would happen to her. No one would ever see her again, assuming she ever saw the light of day again. The primary factions would give anything for a live Drifter, and Meredith was as close as they would ever get.

She could never return to high sec again.

But they could at least have her credentials returned to her, under the assumption she was the same as always—if thirty some years older. They didn’t have to see what she really looked like now. Not until she had the full protection of their Alliance behind her.

“Would she accept that?” asked Bulldog.

Jarvis sighed, hating what he would have to do. “I don’t see how she has a choice, do you?”

* * * *

The obvious signs of her imprisonment had been removed, but the ankle bracelet, a subtle one, was cinched around her right ankle. She stared out the window as she stood in the bar. Jay didn’t know what to say as he shifted his weight.

“You could start with hello,” she said finally, crossing her arms as she turned to look at him.

Even though he had been there when she was being interrogated, seeing her in person with no glass between them made it seem more real. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she whispered back.

He took another step. “Is it… is it really you?”

She shrugged. “As far as I can tell.”

He smiled then. “I don’t care.”

She lifted a brow. “Really?”

He snorted. “Okay, I do care if it is. But I’m sure you are. At least, I hope so.”

“Are you telling me you’ve waited over thirty years, with no one else in between?” she asked gently, and when he shook his head, she smiled sadly. “I didn’t think you would and I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Why?” he asked, his brows crinkling.

“Because you shouldn’t have had to,” she answered. “You deserved to find someone else instead of spending thirty some years pining for someone that was declared legally dead a few years into it, and I don’t begrudge you finding happiness after me.”

He grinned. “I’m married.”

She sighed. “I thought so. Kids?”

He nodded, “Yeah, we have a few. I had a daughter. Named her Meredith.”

She laughed then. “Good, I’m glad for you.”

He took another step and hugged her, and she hugged him back. “So, I guess this is good-bye then,” she whispered when they broke apart.

Jay nodded. “Yeah, my contract ends and I’m headed back to high-sec soon. My wife is hoping to send our kids to school at one of the schools a few systems out of Jita.”

“She’s Caldari, then?”

“Yeah, Civire like me,” Jay answered and he stepped away. “Just because… you know… we’re still friends, yeah? Keep in touch.”

“I’d like that,” said Meredith.

Jay Nye turned and left.

They both knew they never would keep in touch.

* * * *

**Deklein/N-U2LX/DKUK-G VI – Moon 2**  
Minmatar Service Outpost  
YC118.12.24

Jarvis stepped into the office. In one hand sat a key, and in the other was a certificate. Meredith looked up and at the two items. “What’s this?” she asked.

“This is your certificate of not being dead anymore,” he answered, as he set the document packet down. “Everything you need to pick up your life again is in there. All of your old credentials—updated, of course.”

“And the key?”

“I am taking the ankle bracelet off. Now that you’re alive, and you haven’t done anything criminal or to lead us to believe you’re a spy, we have no legal reason to hold you anymore,” he answered. “However, I have to tell you with your… uh… appearance you may want to stick around. Which is why else I’m here—if you want a place in Lippstadt, you have it. Just on probation for now. You’ll officially still be with Caille but you’re out here. I wouldn’t recommend undocking, as Caille is still considered neutral to us. However, being already docked up and all, there’s not much we can do. So… did you want to work with us again?”

“What happened between you and SoCT?” asked Meredith, leaning back in her chair as she put her leg up on the desk to allow Jarvis easy access to her ankle.

As he leaned over her leg, he sighed. “After you were reassigned, and when you joined ORE, things didn’t work out so well. I left and took a position with another corporation that took me out to Omist.”

“You’re not there now,” she pointed out.

“No,” he shook his head. “Things happened. Long story. We’re here now. It’s a decent group of people, once you get to know them.”

“I look forward to it,” she answered, as she rubbed her ankle.

Jarvis lifted a brow, knowing that everything below her chest was actually cybernetic so her doing that was more out of habit than anything else. But it was reassuringly human of her.

“Welcome back to the rest of New Eden, Meredith,” said Jarvis, with a small smile.

She smiled back. “It’s good to be back.”

* * * *

_A few months later, Meredith was formally accepted into Lippstadt Creed where she has remained ever since. Her official paperwork lists her date of her death being repealed as the very start, but her history is like peeling back the layers of onion. We all know this. It’s as easy as looking at how much she remembers before that official date, and the story is written on her face._

_A few years later, after leaving Deklein for Etherium Reach, Meredith en Thielles continues to work with Lippstadt Creed, and now with Solyaris Chtonium as well, no longer fearing CONCORD as they have bigger issues on their plates than an escapee from Drifter space._

_… And the story continues_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now to actually finish Season One through Three of Invictus so this isn't so in left field, but this brings it up to the "official date" on my character bio in game.
> 
> ~ Meredith


End file.
